Artworks

Portrait of Ichikawa Bei’an

Artwork · Watanabe Kazan · 1837 · kakemono · Kyoto National Museum

A memorial portrait by Watanabe Kazan (1793–1841) of Ichikawa Beian (1779–1858), calligrapher and Confucian scholar whom he regarded as a spiritual mentor; laudatory inscriptions were added for Bei’an’s sixtieth birthday. A preliminary sketch survives: informal, with the swelling below the right ear and unfocused eyes, while the finished portrait in court costume and cap uses Western highlights and shadows for the face. Kazan, a samurai of the Tawara clan and student of rangaku, was put under house arrest in 1839 and committed suicide in 1841. 1 Mason 2005, pp. 341–342, figs. 399–400. ↩ Literatur Mason 2005: Penelope E. Mason, History of Japanese Art, 2nd, Pearson Education LTD. 2005.